The Plain in the Mountains
by Arhani 'Hanny' Daforcena
Summary: A seemingly routine mission turns deadly when some Chinese extremists plot to destroy an ancient samurai line. But things are not always as what they seem, in that mystical mountain... Spin-off from the Red Dragon. Soap X OC. Have fun reading!
1. Chapter 1

Lt. Simon "Ghost" Riley

Task Force 141

Kyoto Mountains

* * *

It had been a "routine mission", a little cover there, a little protection there. Ghost knew this kind of missions would be ultimately easy to carry out, but this particular one was boring him out of his wits… And just when he was about to take a smoke, he saw a familiar head of fiery red…

"Reddie, what the hell are you doing here?" he asked, hoping that he had not been mistaken. Thankfully, he was not. He could recognize that dragon with the ruby eyes on that katana sheath from anywhere in the world. It belonged to Ryuka, the co-Lieutenant of the Task Force 141.

Ryuka turned around and raised an eyebrow at Ghost incredulously. "Ghost, what the hell are you talking about?" she asked him, placing her hands on her hips. Dressed in a traditional woman's hakama and gi instead of her new and improved light armor, which was in fact a catsuit made of leather-looking materials with a Kevlar corset, she exuded an air of calm and peace, and not subtle hostility hidden within her ultimately eye-pleasing female form.

At least her reply seemed to convince Ghost enough that she was the real deal. "Well, look at you!" he exclaimed, gesturing about her. He really, really was not used to see her like that, the katana he was used to, so demure and… well… docile. In fact, most of the women on that mountain were wearing the same thing as she was, katana included. Being the alert man that he always was, he knew that something was up. "So, what's the occasion? I thought that you're supposed to be in Tokyo!"

"Something to do with your mission, I can tell you that," Ryuka replied with a smirk. In fact, she had taken a month's long leave to come back to Japan for a family gathering. After all, this was the ancestral home of her line from both sides of her family. "Didn't you get the memo?"

Ghost was a dutiful lieutenant, of course he got the memo. "Wait a minute," he said, "You're from the 'mystical samurai line' that China wants to get back at for Japan's WWII atrocities?" Wow. No wonder Roach was so enthusiastic about that mission. "Does the Captain know?" he asked.

"The Captain?" Ryuka asked almost sheepishly. He knew that she was back in Japan for a "family thing", but said gathering concerned the traditional meditation, sparring, and the usual catching up with the relatives. The most important thing was that every single living female descendant of that samurai line was there, which included the Algren daughters from America, which meant that this would be the greatest concentration of US servicewomen in foreign areas, thus, the Task Force 141 was called to protect them in any way possible.

"You didn't tell him, didn't you?" Ghost rolled his eyes. He knew, from the very start of Ryuka's career in the 141, Soap had cared for her more than any person he could think of. Besides, it was an open secret that the two of them were in a relationship, and given Ryuka's unorthodox methods of overcoming enemies, which usually resulted in life threatening situations on her part, he knew that the Captain would go ballistic if he found out that she was right there in the danger zone. "Reddie, love, you do know that he's leading the mission, right?"

Ryuka's expression immediately paled. "No, I thought you were," she replied. "He told me that…" At her pause, Ghost told her that Soap had wanted to surprise her by visiting her in Tokyo after the mission, but apparently, the reunion between the two would be coming a little earlier than expected… She knew that she had to face the music this time, and she knew that there was no hiding or weaseling herself away from the tight spot that she would be in this time. "Alright, where the hell is he?" she asked Ghost, heaving a long, labored sigh.

"Talking to the matriarch," Ghost answered. "He wants to plant two sniper teams around the perimeter, but she does not like the idea of it. Something about not defiling the ancestral grounds with modern weapons and whatnot…"

"I'll talk to them," Ryuka said. Her grandmother was a stalwart defender of their own traditions, and knowing that Soap might be a future grandson-in-law, perhaps, she would let her own convictions down for the safety of all.

* * *

"For the last time, Captain, I will not tolerate the use of modern weapons in the very heart of the dwellings of my ancestors," the older woman, Grandmother Ryu, in black and red Japanese traditional clothes said to Soap. Strangely, she reminded him of Ryuka, an older, and slightly wiser Ryuka, that was, and she was even wearing a katana… Somehow, he knew that it could not be a mere coincidence. "Even if we are under some threat of Chinese extremists, we are perfectly able to handle the situation ourselves."

Soap, however, disagreed. "Ma'am, they are all fully armed, while you only have katana to defend yourselves with," he reasoned. Suddenly, he felt a familiar hand touch his shoulder, and when he turned around, he saw Ryuka, right before him, dressed exactly like the matriarch before him. "Red-"

Ryuka leaned towards him and kissed him before he could say anything, stopping him mid-sentence, much to her grandmother's and his surprise. "It's good to see you, Captain," she greeted with a small smile after bowing to her grandmother. "Oba-sama, forgive me, but I would have to agree with MacTavish here. We are indeed under much more trouble than we have ever imagined."

Grandmother Ryu looked at her granddaughter and raised her eyebrow. She knew that it would be highly unorthodox to be involved with a person in the same team, much less her own superior, but she had never doubted her granddaughter's tastes in men. Amused, she looked at her youngest grandchild and said, "My dear granddaughter, you are not foreign to our ways… You know why we are not allowed to bring modern weapons here."

"Oba-sama, there are 40 of us, and about 200 of them. No matter how fast we are move, that's eight gunmen to a swordswoman. We'll be sitting ducks without sniper cover," Ryuka reasoned, almost begging her grandmother with her large, dark eyes. "Whatever damage done can be rebuilt, Oba-sama. But if our line ends here, both Japanese and American, we're done for."

Soap looked at Ryuka and could not help but to smirk inwardly. It seemed that family dynamics really worked the same in each and every family. Ryuka was the youngest of two sisters, and not only that, she was the youngest child of her generation, making her the effective "baby" of the family. Usually, that meant negotiating power. Coupled with the fact that she was the only one in the family that got into the Task Force 141, he knew that before long, she would have successfully gotten the clearance to get Toad and Archer as well as Ghost and himself into the appropriate spots before the Chinese would schedule their attack.

Ryuka looked at her grandmother, waiting for a response. "I can see that you trust this man with your life," Grandmother Ryu said to her in Japanese. "Is it because he is your leader, or is it because of another reason that I should know?"

"Both," she answered in the same language. There was no need to elaborate further. Grandmother Ryu knew her granddaughter well. This child was strong and steadfast, firm in her beliefs and those that she loved. If she would have so much faith in this one man, and the soldiers that he had brought with him, she would trust Ryuka's judgment as she always had.

"Very well then," Grandmother Ryu said, reverting back to English. "It has been decided. I will allow snipers into the ancestral plain, but only snipers. The rest of your team will have to defend us from the outside. However, I will have one condition from you, Captain MacTavish: remember that Ryuka-chan is off duty. She will be safe with us."

At that point of time, neither Ryuka nor Soap knew whether or not it was a test given to them, but Ryuka agreed. They would not have enough weapons if she had joined them anyways. Thus, Soap gave Grandmother Ryu a polite bow and walked towards the team after planting a soft kiss on her temple.

"You know, Ryuka-chan, this man, hold on to him," Grandmother Ryu said, almost matter-of-factly. It had been three years, more or less, since she had been in the Task Force 141, for three years, she had been with the same man. It was a sign clearer than the light of day. "I can see that he clearly cares for you. Has he asked you to marry him anytime soon?"

"Oba-sama, we've been through this before," Ryuka said to her grandmother. Being together for three years, in their line of work, as almost an eternity, she knew it and she knew it well. With FNGs getting killed off as soon as they're sent into the 141, and older combatants dying with every mission, Ryuka knew the sadness of losing a great friend, and a team mate. She had kept things "casual" with the Captain, because they knew that any single one of them would die at any single moment, they had told themselves that if they had kept things simple, perhaps, the pain that they would feel would not be as great… that was why their relationship was hardly acknowledged, but widely known throughout their organization.

Of course, it was just them lying to themselves. Anyone in the Task Force 141 knew that they were highly monogamous to one another, and Grandmother Ryu seemed to agree with them. "Alright, I shall not probe you any further," she said to her granddaughter. "Now, go with your mother and your sister, the ceremony will be starting soon."

"Hai, Oba-sama," she said, and bowed before leaving through the door.

* * *

Roach had never seen so many beautiful women in one place before. Heck, even the older ladies, from the way they looked now, he could tell that once upon a time, they must have been total babes. "Roach, what are you doing?" Meat asked him as he looked down from the tall, ancient pine tree with binoculars. "Checking out hot babes?"

"Nope," Roach replied rather sheepishly. He could point out one thing, though. "They all look, like, well, Reddie," he added. The bone-structure, the height, and those features which blurred between Asian and European, all of them had the same characteristics that Ryuka had.

"Well, it's their ancestral home, go figure," Meat added. "Why is this place so sacred to them anyways?" They were all before a majestic, roaring waterfall, and the woman, they just sat in lines and meditated, their katana gracefully placed upon the ground.

Roach, a fan of all things Japanese, knew the answer, of course. "Well, apparently, this is where their ancestor found an injured female dragon and nursed her back to health. To repay him, the dragon married him and gave him two beautiful girls, and told him that their daughters must be trained and respected like a samurai. So when the dragon left for Heaven, she taught them the most powerful style of kenjutsu to remember her by. I think this is some family gathering to commemorate that."

While it was an interesting story, Meat hardly believed any of it. However, that did not mean that the mysticism was not getting to him in either way. There was a strange quality to that place. All of them were battle-worn soldiers, but there was a sudden peace that swept all of them, as if the wind had brought them security and calmness whenever it blew.

"Look, over there," Roach said, spotting the rustling of some leaves that he knew should not have been there. There they were, the Chinese radicals. "Bravo Six, I'm picking up a few signals, they might be tangos," he reported to Soap. "Bravo Six, do you copy?"

"I got you, Roach," Soap replied. He, on the other hand, had a vantage point closer to the women, and had the perfect view of whatever was happening there. "Do not engage without my go," he said. "We can't afford to scare them off…"

What the hell did Soap mean by that?

Ghost caught the answer almost immediately. "Sir, you can't be using them as bait!" he exclaimed. 


	2. Chapter 2

Ryuka "Red Dragon" Algren/Algren "Koutatsu" Ryuka

Task Force 141/Japanese Tokushu Sakusen Gun (Special Forces Group)

Kyoto Mountains

* * *

She had been taught to value every single aspect of life, to use her sword and her skills to aid those who needed her. For centuries, her foremothers, born in this very plain, near this majestic waterfall, had protected Japan and her people. Now, with the advent of war, constantly griping the entire globe, there was no reason for her to remain only in Japan. That was why when she had been approached by Shepherd to join the Task Force 141, she jumped at the opportunity.

But to have the chance to be with her family, at least half of it, and also her teammates, it was the chance of a lifetime. Of course, Grandmother Ryu and Mrs. Algren had thoroughly made sure that she was without any form of communications device on her at that time, but she had her own ways to communicate with them. After all, she had specialized in deep cover operations when there was seemingly no way to tell anything to anyone else.

You see, unlike the rest of the Task Force 141, she was trained exactly in the ways of Japanese kenjutsu the way her ancestors had been trained. Apart from the modern safety apparatus, they had been taught almost acrobatic movements the same way their foremothers had been taught, and not only that, the concept of using their Ki, the internal energies that lied in almost every being was also passed to them.

In essence, the 40 women of that samurai line, they did not radars or GPS systems to know "where" and "who". Ryuka could perfectly sense that Meat and Roach were together at one vantage point, Archer and Toad, as well as Soap and Ghost in another. The rest of the team that came with them, they were right at the opening of the mountain, waiting for further instructions. Not only that, there were about a few unfamiliar traces of Ki, most probably the extremists that Soap had been talking about.

There were about ten of them, each surrounding the perimeter. The others might think that Soap was using them as bait, but they would have to do better than that. Even without modern weapons, they were all perfectly able to fend for themselves. The presence of the Task Force 141 there, Ryuka deemed, and her grandmother had decided, was to give aid unless they were completely incapable of controlling the situation, which she had doubted.

Using the sign language that they themselves had invented, a series of finger-taps, shifting of body-weight and even moving of the head, she told them that she was aware of the tangos all around them, and that more were coming. Archer and Toad, would have to move inwards towards the interior of the mountain to find where they were coming from. It would be a huge sacrilege, but if the Chinese knew even how to get there, it was without a doubt somehow, someone must have tipped them off.

"What's she saying?" Roach asked Meat. Being the FNG, he was not at all familiar with the sign language that they had devised.

"She's saying that she suspects that someone's betrayed them, and that Archer and Toad'll have to go into the mountain to look for the rest of 'em," Meat translated. "She also wants MacTavish to stay out of this as much as possible. It's a 'family thing'".

Roach could tell that Soap would be fuming by now. She had led him to believe that she was on their side, and now, she's… Well, he would let them settle that between themselves. The tangos were getting closer and closer, and soon, they could see ten men, all surrounding the women.

"Who dares enter this sacred mountain uninvited?" Grandmother Ryu asked fiercely in Chinese, her eyes still closed. Immediately, the men raised their guns towards her only to have one of their own killed by a flying blade that apparently came out from nowhere. "Go back to where you came from, or you will face consequences similar to that of your brother's."

The Chinese did not say anything. Most probably, they would not even know why there were here. "Very well, we will kill all of you one by one until someone says anything," one of the women threatened.

The members of the Task Force 141 were astounded. Apart from the Algrens, these women supposedly came from all walks of life. Although they were trained in combat, they were essentially civilians. How was it possible that they had edges like those who had seen nothing but war and bloodshed for all their lives?

"Leave it to Reddie," Soap instructed suddenly, offering no further explanation.

The Chinese were starting to retreat, knowing that their presence there had already been compromised. They could see Ryuka walking towards one of them, the only one with a red square on his sleeves. That had to mean something as the others did not have them… She borrowed a long whip from one of her cousins, and marked that man, signaling to Ghost to shoot his leg on her go.

"You will tell us who you are, or you will die," she told the man next to the marked one in Chinese, as her grandmother had done. The moment she whipped him across the chest, Ghost shot the one that she had marked, causing the others to retreat into the forest immediately. The two of them would not be able to leave, and she quickly told the women to bind them with any method necessary.

"I'll leave them to you, Captain," Grandmother Ryu said to Soap. "This man's superiors threaten to destroy the scions of my family, and I will not allow it to happen. Give me whatever information that you can find."

Soap nodded, and looked at Ryuka. Usually, he would have her… extract the information from the men that they had captured, but he knew that it was impossible to do so. It would worry her family greatly to know that she was trained to torture and withstand torture. She shook her head slightly, telling him the same thing that he had concluded.

"Who do you think it is, Ryuka-chan?" Mrs. Algren asked her daughter. As the daughter of the matriarch, she was the Miko, the one who presided over the ceremonies. However, like her daughter, she had been from the Japanese Special Forces Group, and understood that this may be more than just the prattle of a few Chinese radicals as well…

"It could be anyone," Ryuka answered, ignoring the cries that had emerged from that makeshift tent where Ghost was torturing the Chinese for information. She knew that her mother was aware of the severity of this issue. "Someone with military contacts and knowledge about who we are…"

* * *

The Ultranationalist looked at the Chinese General. The two of them were far, far away the Kyoto Mountains, even further from Japan, even. They were in Beijing, China. "Do you think that this is wise, attacking them at the source?" the General asked the Ultranationalist.

Upon the projector's screen, were profiles of the female descendants of the Algrens, each and every single one of them. "The Algrens, they may be famous for being an American military dynasty, but notice that their daughters, all of them are involved with the various elite forces… Marines, Navy SEALS, some of them in the top levels of the CIA… All of them are currently in Japan, far, far away from their homeland, without anyone to protect them," the Ultranationalist told his counterpart coolly.

"So you think that killing them would cripple the US military and the CIA?" the General asked the Ultranationalist. He had no quarrel with America in any way, but if the CIA's eyes were lifted from his… activities, his business ventures would be carried out with greater ease. After all, the deals that he had made with the Ultranationalist had been highly lucrative to say the least.

"Of course," the Ultranationalist replied, landing his gaze on the youngest of the lot. She was young, to say the least. "Japanese Special Forces, eh?" he mused. That was strange. This girl, she was an American, and yet she was in the Japanese Special Forces. Most probably, she held double citizenship… "At any rate, your informant… is she reliable?"

The General smirked. "The dead are the only ones who cannot betray you," he said, "Sadly, she had betrayed her own family, under the pain of torture…" He pulled the cursor of the mouse towards the woman who was stated to be MIA, her status only acknowledged a few days ago. This meant that her family would have no way to know about her at that point of time.

"Well then," the Ultranationalist said, seemingly heaving a sigh of relief. Standing up, he poured himself and the General each a glass of red wine to celebrate, a very fine vintage, for a fine occasion indeed. "Here's to us, my friend, and the future of our great countries."

* * *

"God damn it, MacTavish, we're in a tree!" Ryuka cursed as Soap started to caress his fingers up and down her smooth thigh. Alright, coming to his tent in the middle of the night was not a good idea, nor was leading him up a particularly sturdy tree with wide branches a better one. She did not know what came over her, but she knew that she could blame everything on Soap when this sort of thing happened.

Soap placed a large hand over her mouth and drew her closer to him, making sure that she did not fall off the branch. "You don't want anyone to hear us, Reddie," he whispered gruffly into her ears.

"Well, too late, Captain," she replied, looking into his blue eyes while she caressed his scar lightly. It had been there, even before she had joined the 141, and it only managed to add to the mystery about him. "They could have sensed us coming here, and my sister, I'm sharing a room with her."

She knew that Soap could care less about anything. "And you kissed me in front of your grandmother," he told her, almost condescendingly, planting a kiss on her jaw, moving from one end to the other end. "And… I need an explanation." He was not familiar with Japanese traditional clothing, and fumbled slightly with the ties of her outfit that sat in front of her waist. "You said nothing about coming to Kyoto,"

Ryuka placed a hand on his, stopping him from doing further damage to her supposed modesty. "I said that I was here for a month-long family gathering," she told him, "I think you were busy doing something like… this… at the time," she replied, prying his mouth open with her tongue, pulling his hand, and his arm around her waist.

Groaning, Soap turned her around and backed her towards the trunk of the tree, their tongues still dancing between their mouths. "Well then, what would you propose we do, if we're up a tree?" he asked her, his hot breath on the arch of her neck.

She said nothing, but unsheathed her dagger holstered upon her left thigh. "What about this?" she asked, twirling the dagger with exceptional skill before lunging towards Soap, pinning him onto the tree by his Kevlar vest that he had not yet taken off before she had signaled him to follow her just moments before. "Here, you can learn our ways better, and perhaps you'll understand why I prefer my katana over my M4A1."

With those words, she kissed Soap on the forehead and redid the ties of her hakama before climbing down the tree. With his brute strength, it would not take long for him to get out of this little predicament, but long enough for her to get down from the tree and return to her room, leaving him to figure out where she would be.

Soap cursed. First, she seduces him into coming out there, and then, she just leaves him there after teasing him to no end… He would pay her back. Just she wait.

* * *

HAN: MW2LVR: Thanks for the review!


	3. Chapter 3

Ryuka looked at the men before her, broken and highly in pain. They were well-trained and loyal indeed, for they would reveal nothing at all. "Perhaps I should have left them for you?" Ghost asked her, charging a couple of car batteries that the rest of the team was able to obtain from the city.

"No need," Ryuka told Ghost, placing a hand on his shoulders. "I told my grandmother that I would stay out of this." Her grandmother knew that she was an elite soldier, but Grandmother did not know the nature of her operations. She had told her grandmother that she specialized as a sniper, and information extraction... Grandmother Ryu thought that she was a hacker at most. Ryuka was a black-ops specialist before she had come into the Task Force 141, which meant that arson, torture and assassination were normal occurrences to her.

However, looking at her relatives, all standing before the tent, scared and confused, she could not help but to take her dagger (which Soap had duly returned in the morning) and thrust it into one of the men's shoulders. "You do not wish your own family to know this kind of fear," she said to him in Chinese. "When the ones you love are in danger, when every single move you make would bring them closer to their deaths..."

Tears ran down his eyes, either out of the pain, or out of what Ryuka had said. "I..."

"My grandmother is sixty this year," Ryuka added. "She is not like us, we are soldiers, we know what it is to die for our countries, but does your grandmother know what is it that you are doing? If she knew that you would be the one who would kill 40 women, unarmed with only but mere katana... how would she feel?"

This was more than just torture. Ryuka was using psychological torture, and Ghost knew it. Her dark eyes, they were filled with a dark light that threatened to kill anyone who dared to try anything else, but to the man, they were tear-filled and fearful as well. "My... my... grandmother... is... dead... cancer..." he stuttered between bouts of tears.

"She came to me last night," she told him, "She wants you to tell me what your superiors have planned for us... She does not want to have the blood of 40 women and girls on your hands. She would be very, very disappointed at you if you did not."

The man howled, both in pain and in sadness before divulging everything that he knew. She did not need to translate. Most of her family members could understand Chinese fluently, and the Task Force 141, they were so experienced in the field that they could even guess what that person had meant.

* * *

"So that's that," Soap concluded, poring over the maps that Grandmother Ryu had given him. "The radicals are based right here, in the center of your ancestral mountain, right beside a century-old cemetery. And to make things worse, there's a Chinese general behind this..." He had never thought that the Chinese would remember a grudge for so long. How many years had it been since the Japanese were defeated in WWII?

"We will not bow down to this!" Grandmother Ryu exclaimed angrily, slamming the table. "They are using this as an excuse to kill off innocent women and children!"

Mrs. Algren looked at her mother and shook her head. She had long retired from the field, but she knew that there was more than just that. "That general could not have thought all of this by himself," she told her mother. "And his target, may not be all of us... Only the Algrens..."

Aunty Algren, the matriarch of the American Algrens, nodded her head. This woman was the head of the US Army Rangers before General Shepherd had been. "I think you're right," she told Mrs. Algren. "From Ryuka-chan, our youngest, all of us are in rather high positions. Mother Matriarch, you must understand that this must be an organized operation from an organized enemy..."

"The Ultranationalists," Ryurei, Ryuka's sister said. "If a war would happen between America and Russia, they would benefit most without us hanging around..."

"The Ultranationalists, but what they quarrel do they have with us?" Grandmother Ryu asked Ryurei. "We have done nothing to them at all!"

It was at that moment in time when Ghost decided to butt in. "Ma'am, the Ultranationalists don't need any explanation to do what they do," he said, looking at Grandmother Ryu through his sunglasses and balaclava. His words, although blunt, were direct, and straight to the point. "Their target may be the Algrens, but I think that they'll just kill all of you for the heck of it."

"And we will not just sit here idly waiting for our deaths," Ryuka said, piercing her dagger onto the dot that represented the enemy base. "It does not matter whether they are Chinese or Russians, or that we are Japanese or Americans. They desecrate the lands of our ancestors; they will have to pay for what they have done."

Soap listened to her words, and knew that there was only one thing going in her pretty little head. "Alright Reddie, I'll comm Shepherd and see if you can be in on this one as well," he told her, with little more than a knowing smile. He knew that family was extremely important to her, and having almost the whole team right here with her, he knew that Ryuka would not pass up the chance of having the best of both worlds.

"Alright, if that is your wish, I will not stop you," Grandmother Ryu said to her youngest granddaughter after receiving a nod from Mrs. Algren. Whatever Ryuka had set her mind to do, could never, never be overturned, no matter what others had said. "But you have to promise me that you will be careful."

"Don't worry, I will," she said to her grandmother. "Ghost will make sure that MacTavish does not work me too hard..." She could tell that Ghost was smiling through his balaclava as she nudged him in front of everyone, while Soap just shook his head in slight disapproval along with her grandmother...

* * *

_Those days had been the greatest days of her life..._

_Looking back, with her little daughter in her arms, she knew that no matter how the Task Force 141 had been rebuilt under the banner of the United Nations, whether or not she was now the leader of the new 141 with Soap and Uncle Price... Those days would never come back to her.

* * *

_

"Look at you, a warrior, just like your ancestors," Soap said to Ryuka just after she had shed her hakama and her gi, and changed into her light armor. "You should be shaking with fear right now for your family."

She turned towards Soap, and chuckled. "I am least worried about them, but more about you, Captain," she told him, wrapping her white arms around him. Her dark eyes, they were filled a light that he knew could only come from the ones around her. "If they knew that their darling little Ryuka-chan, has spent more than just a few life-threatening missions with you... Can you imagine what they would do to you?"

Soap kissed the very top of her forehead and replied, "I'll greatly risk whatever they will have for me." That smile on her face, was a smile that he would gladly risk the whole world for. He knew that they were on a mission, he knew that he was supposed to protect her, not as one of his subordinates, but also was one of the individuals concerned with the mission, but it was moments like these that kept him going.

"Oh come on, you big softie..." she said, her weapons already strapped onto her person. Her katana, held onto a belt-hook on her catsuit; her M4A1, onto a strap that ran across her chest, its ammo carefully stored in the various compartments on her Kevlar corset. Come to think of it, it was the first time that she had said anything "modern" in a long, long time.

"Alright, alright," he said, but not before gathering her in his arms for a quick, but chaste kiss. "I'm right behind you."

* * *

The Ultranationalist looked at the map schematics provided by the General's men and said, "This wooden shack is at least thousands of years old... It may not seem like much, but much blood has been spilt there. For centuries, the world has tried to rob these Dragons of their secrets to kenjutsu, but each generation has protected it so well that they failed every time they tried." The red dot that indicated the old shack then traversed lower, as if there was something underground, hidden from the eyes of the world. "And with the advent of technology, they used whatever resources they had, and placed their secrets deeper and deeper under the ground..."

The General, however, did not understand a word that the Ultranationalist had said. "What use would these secrets be to us?" he asked his counterpart, furrowing his black brows. "I mean, what need do you have for kenjustsu secrets?"

"You misunderstand me... You see, these women and children are more than how they appear to be," the Ultranationalist replied. "Their secrets are underground, yes, but so are a series of sophisticated networks that are linked to the various governments that they themselves have pledged their loyalty to. Apart from the main branch of the Algrens in America, their various daughters are also famous for being modern warriors of sorts, businesswomen, arms dealers, you name it, they have it..."

Ah, so that was why the Ultranationalist had been so adamant in taking the entire mountain. "So, you want whatever is underground in that mountain?" the General asked.

"Indeed, my friend," he said. "Indeed... And these women, they will stop at nothing to protect what is so dear to them. Once we gain those networks, we will be able to reach ever single beating heart that powers the blood of every single government that they serve and cut them off one by one..."

* * *

"Reddie, where are you bringing us?" Roach asked as Ryuka brought them through the deep forests of that ancestral mountain, with the permission and blessings of her family.

Ryuka did not answer, and only continued moving forward. She needed no guidance device, not even a GPS, because when she was but a small child, she had been on this very mountain, blindfolded, and left to find her own way to their destination. The call of the birds, the scents of the trees and the feel of the grass beneath her feet, she knew her way just by judging their changes...

Soon, forest changed into a straight road, a pathway, leading to an ancient ceramics kiln, and an even older wooden shack. "We're here," she announced, a sense of relief evident in her voice.

"Where... are we?" Toad asked, looking all around him. "I mean, we're still on the same mountain?"

"Ken wa kioki... Kenjutsu wa satsujin jutsu..." Ryuka murmured, thrusting her katana into the ground. "The sword is only a weapon to kill, and kenjutsu is the skill of murder," she translated. "Toad, Archer, get the C4, we need to blow this place up before anyone is able to get in."

Soap did not understand why. "I thought that this place is highly sacred to your family..." he asked her. "Why do you want to..."

Ryuka did not give him a chance to talk further, covering his mouth with her hand. "Sir, enough," she said, "Ghost, Roach, come with us, the rest of you, plant the C4 as I told you to."

As it turned out, the shack and the kiln were just relics of history. What was important was far beneath the earth... Once they entered the shack, Ryuka turned one of the ceramic pots around, revealing a number pad... After keying in a few numbers, two flaps in the floor opened, revealing a stairway leading them underground.

Using the lights on their weapons to illuminate their way, the four members of the 141 descended the stairs, and came towards what seemed to be highly hidden bunker. "My line is called the Daughters of the Dragons. Not only do we extend to the Algrens, descended from the male line in America, but we are also linked to various other family dynasties around the world... And these families are linked to various institutions and governments around the world..."

The Rothschilds in the banking sector, the Hyatts in the hotel industry... If the enemy would lay hands on these networks of information, they would lay hands on the world itself. "So you'd have no choice but to destroy this bunker..." Soap concluded, looking at Ryuka, who was now busy tapping at a series of keyboards.

"Yes, but before that, I will need to inform those involved in this," she said, "They will know what to do..." With those words, she pressed a button, and told them to leave that place, including Soap. "I will be fine here. Captain, get the job done..."

As much as Soap felt that it was a bad idea to leave Ryuka alone right there, he knew that it was what he needed to do. "I'll wait for you," he told her, caressing the side of her face before he left with Roach and Ghost. But just as they had returned to the surface, the entrance to the bunker sealed from within, they were met with guns of various make, Toad, Archer and Meat, now bound and gagged.

A Chinese man stepped out of the many guns and soldiers, tall and mustached, he had an air of confidence and dominance. "Well, well, well, it seems that the Japanese have their Western protectors," he said to them in English. "Tell me, what is below that shack of yours, and I will think of letting you live."

* * *

HAN: Thank you wolfdemon22 for your kind and generous review!


	4. Chapter 4

Ryuka did not need to anyone to tell her that they have been compromised on the surface. The very moment her comms had been cut off from the rest of them, she had already known what was going on. In fact, she had expected something like that to happen. "This is Koutatsu, initiating sequence 4428," she spoke into the microphone of the computer system, scattering what remained of the C4 that they had brought with them throughout the small, enclosed space. "We have been compromised, I repeat, we have been compromised. Mother Matriarch has authorized a full knockdown of the system. Enemy base is speculated to be near the Old Cemetery. This message will not be repeated."

Across the world, respective Daughters of the Dragon received the feed that Ryuka had been playing and acknowledged it completely. One by one, they shut down all communications between networks, and while this was happening, she routed a message to Shepherd via the US CIA's network.

"This is Red Dragon, reaching Papa Dragon across all 141 frequencies. Skipper's been compromised, requesting permission to initiate Protocol Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Uniform."

"Red Dragon, this is Papa Dragon, permission granted. Bring the boys home, baby doll," Shepherd replied from the same frequency.

Mrs. Algren may be a military woman like her daughter, but she did not approve of the use of language that the Task Force 141 had. She immediately balked the moment she heard those five words being uttered by her daughter in the NATO phonetic alphabet. "Protocol Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Uniform?" she asked her daughter across their own frequency. "Ryuka-chan, you had better explain before I wash that mouth of yours out with something stronger than soap!"

At that point of time, when she was busy gathering her weapons and the detonator for the C4 on both levels, Ryuka found it increasingly difficult to stifle a bout of laughter. Used only in situations like these, when most of the team had been cornered by enemy personnel, the protocol would only be known as "Plan B", but when initiated in its pure form, it meant that the amount of explosives have doubled, and the site of the explosions were close to them, increasing the danger to their own, but also the level of confusion that they would cause.

"It's more of a retaliation tactic, hence, the highly dubious name," Ryuka explained to her mother as she made her way along the escape hatch. "How far away am I from the exit?"

"A few more feet and you're home free," Mrs. Algren replied, obviously nursing an apparent headache. Of all her years raising her daughter in Japan had obviously no effect on her resistance towards Western vulgarities... She would have to give her husband a piece of her mind when they returned to Tokyo a few days later. "Be careful, Ryuka-chan, there's nothing that these men won't do."

As much as Ryuka did not want to talk back to her mother, she knew that Mrs. Algren was just being too careful. After all, this was nothing more than a "routine mission" for the 141. Kicking the door at the end of the escape hatch open, she quickly got herself out of the narrow hole, thanking her strict training regime and lack of access to Mrs. Algren's onigiri.

"Bravo Six, this is Red Dragon, initiating Protocol Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Uniform," she said into her comms after switching frequencies. "I'll be there in say, five mikes."

Back at the shack, Soap was being held at gunpoint by the mustached Chinese man. "Tell me, what this protocol is?" he asked the Captain of the 141 after listening to Ryuka's transmission.

"Do you really wanna know?" Soap asked the other man, trying to keep a straight face. Oh, he remembered when they formulated that very protocol, a result of too much alcohol and the failure of a company of men to get one single woman drunk after a particularly stressful mission they had completed in utter success. He was even more surprised that Shepherd actually authorized them to use it in the field.

If they remembered right, the explosion would happen in, say, four seconds after notification. As he looked right and left, he could see Toad, Roach, Ghost, Meat and Archer already ready to act as soon as the C4 was ready to blow up. "Go!"

It was not meant to reach his teammates, but Ryuka. This was his order, and the very moment she heard his voice, she clicked the button on the detonator, and only hoped that she was there to see the explosions that happened. She knew her comrades so well, in fact, she could see it with her mind's eye.

At the very moment of explosion, Soap would have attacked the person closest to him with a head butt, while Roach the most resourceful, even if he had not been the most experienced of them all, would have already found a way to free himself. Moving from person to person, he would free them all with the tamahagane combat knife that she had given him the last Christmas, and then, the magic would happen.

Once the ash and the smoke subsided, the smartest thing to do was to trudge on forwards, back to the exterior of the shack, where they could already see Ryuka moving towards them. "You missed the fireworks, love," Ghost shouted to her, "Bloody good one at that!"

"There's always the Fourth of July, Ghost darling," she replied with a chuckle. It had been an inside joke. To keep people's attention off her and Soap, Ghost would openly flirt with her, no matter where they were. Well, this was one tactic that _used_ to work, until it ran its course. "Captain, are you alright?" she asked Soap, receiving nothing more than a curt nod, which was so typical of him, right in the field.

"Well, great, we've managed to charbroil enough people to actually tell the Chinese that we're here," Meat said, looking at the amount of Chinese soldiers crawling out of the shack, the flames staying onto their bodies like their own skin. It was a gruesome sight, but a sight that they were used to.

Toad, on the other hand, was not that pessimistic. "I bet that they didn't even know what hit 'em," he said, giving them a round device which seemed to be still working. "See, the Chinese may be manufacturing giants, but they still come out with shoddy work..."

The rest of them did not seem to understand a thing that he was talking about, until a voice came out of the device. It must be one of the comms that the Chinese had on them, miraculously saved from the explosion that destroyed most of the squad sent to annihilate them. "Squad A, Squad A, have you gotten into the bunker?"

And now, they're at a loss. There were no females in the supposed Squad A, so Ryuka could not answer for them. Roach could speak Chinese, but he had a very distinct American accent to it... "I have an idea," Meat said. "It might not work, but it's worth a try."

* * *

Two hours later

* * *

Grandmother Ryu was anxious. She had already received word from the four corners of the globe that they had already received notification that their network had already taken down by rather explosive means, but still Ryuka had not returned with her teammates.

"Oka-sama, you don't have to worry," Mrs. Algren told her mother. "Ryuka's one of the best in the field, she knows what she is doing." However, a grandmother's worry and concern could not be easily erased. Grandmother's Ryu's heart was set not only upon her youngest granddaughter, who was thrust into the very heart of danger in their own ancestral home, but also to their own safety, not in that current setting, but something a little further.

"Every single Daughter of the Dragon must be accounted for," Grandmother Ryu told her daughter. "Daughter, Ryurei, this task will fall upon you. It is of utmost importance."

Mrs. Algren and Ryurei nodded, and bowed before moving to gather the necessary resources. They must have been betrayed. She knew that no one could have known the secrets that had been known by the Chinese... But not every single Daughter of the Dragon was there, due to various reasons.

Of the daughters of the Algren line, descended and linked closely linked towards the Daughters of the Dragon, only one was absent. Fifth Cousin Algren, one of the US Navy SEALS, had been on a mission in Kenya and was not able to return to Kyoto in time. It had not been a necessary condition that the Japanese line returned to Kyoto every time gatherings like these happened, but for the Algrens, it was of utmost importance...

"This is Black Dragon, come in Red Dragon," Ryurei said to her sister.

"Talk, Black Dragon," Ryuka replied. She was on sniper duty, with Toad and Archer, while Ghost, Roach, Meat and Soap entered the enemy territory. They were now at the second stage of the operation, which was to destroy the base, using air support, after Shepherd hooked them up with the Japanese Special Forces Group after it had been confirmed that Chinese were there.

"Do you remember where Fifth Cousin Algren went before we came here?" Ryurei asked. "She is now MIA... We suspect that she was captured by some enemy faction... In the end, she must have broken under torture..."

It did not matter now, whether or not who had betrayed them, whether or not it had been intentional, what had happened already happened. "We'll only talk about this after the operation, Red Dragon out." It was not Ryuka saw that information as unimportant; it was that there was something stirring in the depths of her hearts. Somewhere, someone was watching them, she just knew it. It was just like four years ago in the Middle East...

* * *

"_Talk, what has al-Asad planned besides killing the president?" Ryurei asked the Arab that had been tied to a chair, while her sister looked for any incoming enemies from outside the little mud-hut they were in. Unlike Ryuka, she was also fluent in Arabic, making it easier for her to interrogate anyone they had captured. _

"_Only the downfall... of... you... Western dogs..." the man replied, spitting on the ground, right next to Ryurei's feet. "You... will... all... die...__ Shadow... Zhakaev... promised..."_

_What did those words mean? What was he saying? The US invasion that they had come with was among the biggest throughout history... The primary force, the backbone of this invasion, had been thirty thousand US Marines, led under one Lt. Gen. Shepherd._

_Why of all places, was this man hiding here? In this run-down little village, filled only with orphans and the old? Unless..._

"_It's a cover, Blackie, he's hiding something from us!" Ryuka shouted. And then, something started to beep, and the beeping got louder and louder. Following the source of the beeping, Ryuka moved over a chest that revealed a little hole built into the wall of the mud-hut. "What the hell is this?"_

_How ironic, that she could read Russian... It was a Russian weapon, not only that... It was too powerful to be more a mere warhead... It was... Ryuka's eyes widened as she read what was laid out on the screen of the device. There was something wrong with this... _

"_They have a nuclear bomb!" she shouted to Ryurei. The man had already activated the bomb before the two of them had managed to interfere. "Shepherd, we have bad news..."_

"_I know, I'm sending a chopper to your location, get there in 30 seconds, or you'll be yaikitori!"

* * *

_

The Shadow of Zhakaev... This man was the one who provided Khaled al-Asad with the nuclear bomb that had destroyed more US soldiers than any enemy had done. But if not for her sister and herself, more could have been sacrificed needlessly. If Ryuka and Ryurei could have found that person out, surely this Shadow of Zhakhaev could have surely done the same as well...

"Reddie!"

A voice broke Ryuka from her concentration. "What is it, Roach?" she asked the owner of the voice that racked through her mind clearer than a bullet across the dry, desert air of the past.

"The Captain and Meat are down!"

"Toad, Archer, secure this position, I'm going in!" Ryuka instructed. She did not know what was going on, nor did she know what will happen. All that she knew was that she had to go in, and get her teammates out of there before it was too late.

* * *

HAN: I hope that by now, you can see what this spin-off is for. Yes? A cookie for anyone who guesses right. Thanks for reading, and please review!


	5. Chapter 5

"_Remember, Ryuka-chan, combat does not mean using only your body and your guns to take down another opponent," her father's voice rang in her head. "It means using whatever you have as an advantage against your enemies. Our style recognizes not only power, accuracy and efficiency, we kill with a single stroke, but if you unable to act quicker, think faster and attack in a manner that would not surprise the enemy, your skills will be useless."

* * *

_

Her father's words ran through Ryuka's head as she leapt from tree to tree, right towards the makeshift base beside an old cemetery dating from at least the Meiji era. It was where their closest ancestors, and the founders of the American-Japanese Algren line had been laid to rest… Her near-acrobatic skills, they were not developed by her training in the military. Those skills, had been shaped by her family, her mother and father, using methods as traditional as possible, and it was those skills that she knew that she would have to utilize to get her teammates out.

There were high fences, filled with barbed electric wire, but from the trees, they were not an obstacle to her. From the branch of an ancient pine tree, she leaped down to a rather empty part of the enemy base without a single sound, and unsheathed her katana as silently as she could. Without any suppressed weapons, her katana would have to do, no matter how much Soap would disapprove. Besides, she herself had admitted that she was more proficient with her katana than any single sniper rifle she had, despite being one of the Task Force 141's best snipers besides Archer.

Like a shadow, she crept from tent to tent, searching for where Soap, Ghost, Roach and Meat would be held. With two of them down, there would be a high probability that they would have the others as well… Two of the guards had already spotted her, a dark figure in the night, apart from her head of blazing red hair. "Halt… who goes there?" one of them asked, but was met with a stroke of her katana across his neck, the fate of his counterpart similar to his, their blood splattered against the surfaces of the tent within seconds.

"Where are you?" she asked them under her breath as she flitted from tent to tent, evading as many moving shadows as possible. If she had time, she would have waited to sense their Ki, but due to the sheer amount of enemy soldiers, she could not take that risk, she had to keep moving.

* * *

"General, we have bad news," the soldier said to the General. "We have reports that the bunker has been destroyed… Squad A has also been annihilated."

As much as he tried to control his own anger, the General could not help but to smash the glass of wine off his table. "What?" he asked, "How can that be? I sent 200 soldiers there; can they not just kill off 40 women?"

The Ultranationalist, however, did not believe things were so simple. "They must have their own allies, think, my friend, the Daughters of the Dragon are linked not only to the Algrens in the US," he said calmly, looking at the report that the soldier had handed to the General, reading the Chinese words carefully. "It seems to me that they already know that we are there…"

"But how?" the General asked. "No one knows about this operation other than you and me."

"I would not bet my money on those words," the Ultranationalist answered. "Four years ago, in the Middle East, the American army was actually informed that we had a nuclear bomb, dramatically cutting their losses, even though they lost thirty thousand Marines…"

He remembered that day well. Although the operation had been a success, the Americans managed to escape before the greatest damage had been done… As the post-mortem report had been done, his forces had told him that two soldiers, _women_ at that, had killed the man responsible to operate the nuclear weapon just seconds after he had programmed its launch… And he knew, at least _one_ of them had been hot on his trail ever since then.

* * *

_Looking back, as he watched his jailors changing their shifts, he remembered that hot day in the desert when he heard those voices speaking in Japanese to one another through the recording played by a hidden surveillance camera, the same voice which he had heard again in Pyongyang… _

_He had traced the young women who had managed to foil their operations in the Middle East to the Daughters of the Dragon, and in that winter's night in Pyongyang, he had finally met her, the youngest daughter of that austere line, their crown jewel. His hunger for her, would never end, until the day they met again…_

_Try as she might, the two of them, they were bound by fate… If only she had known that earlier…

* * *

_

"You mean to tell me, that the ones that had helped the Americans then, are helping the Daughters of the Dragon now?" the General asked his friend again. And this time, the Russian nodded his head.

"Not only that," the Ultranationalist added. "They have the backing of the American armies. Look at your report, from the four combatants that they had captured, most of their weapons are American-made."

There was nothing more to be said. From there, the General knew what to do. "You there, tell our men to make sure that the hostages do not escape, or they will pay with their lives…"

"Oh, and make sure that your men leave them alive," the Ultranationalist said. "We would need them for some… questioning."

* * *

Ryuka could not count how many soldiers that she had killed since she entered that base, but she knew that the sun would be rising soon, and not only that, she was running out of time. Every second wasted, would be every second less that her teammates had.

Once again, her way forwards was blocked by a sudden chorus of voices, in Chinese, of course. "The General wants them alive and unspoiled…"

Bingo!

She waited there in the shadows, until the group of soldiers had dispersed, leaving only one to guard the entrance of the tent. There, she sensed them, Meat, Ghost, Soap and Roach, their Ki, more clearer to her than ever before. Using her throw-dagger, she lodged the weapon right into the man's chest, and quickly entered the tent.

"Reddie!"

She did not know who shouted her name, but boy-was she glad to hear it. "Do not worry boys, Reddie is here for the rescue," she told them, cutting the ropes that bound them together, quickly kissing Soap while she cut Meat and him free. Once all of them were able to move, she threw them some weapons that she had picked up along the way, and wiped her katana against the tent's surface to clean it as best she could.

"Where to now?" Soap asked her, hardly surprised when she told him that she was not sure herself. "Don't tell me you just bolted right here when Roach commed you!"

"Hey, it was the only thing that I could come out with, Captain," she replied, already anticipating his reaction. "Alright, I had a plan. I get you out, and we burn this whole thing down…" From the very moment that she had joined the mission with her grandmother's green light, she had been briefed by the squad that they would have air support from the Japanese Special Forces Group. She did not know how those "upstairs" would want to make this fiasco look like, but she was sure that it would be an international spectacle indeed.

Soap knew that he had no way around Ryuka's special train of logic. "Alright, you heard Reddie. Open fire and get the hell out of here!"

* * *

"Bravo Six," said the Japanese Special Forces fighter in thickly accented English. "We are ready for our attack run; please evacuate all personnel to waterfall." The similar instruction was also repeated to Grandmother Ryu, who was standing with her family upon the cliff right beside the waterfall.

"Copy that," Soap replied. "Bring the rain, boys!"

* * *

Grandmother Ryu watched as the Japanese fighter pilots neutralized the Chinese base, located right in the heart of the lands of her ancestors. Countless Daughters of Dragons had been born and trained in those sacred plains, in that sacred mountain, and now, she had to suffer the partial destruction of all that laid before her own eyes…

"What have we done to deserve such a fate?" she asked her daughter. "How have we wronged the world?"

Mrs. Algren put a hand to her mother's shoulders and said, "Oka-sama, this fate is not ours to begin with. Do not blame yourself…"

And while this entire incident brought pain to Grandmother Ryu's heart, it only increased the resolve of a certain young Dragon, whose shoulders were encircled by the strong arm of her Captain as they watched the flames, far enough for them to be hidden amongst the trees, yet as close to her family and teammates as possible.

This place, this whole mountain, it carried not only the memory of the women that made their linage so honored and so revered in Japan, but also every single hardship that they had suffered. The daughters of Japan, carrying the names "Ryu" or "Tatsu", both meaning "Dragon", were still women, even if they were free to roam in the world of men. These women were given the chance to take charge of their own destinies, and because of this, they themselves, would have to pay the price of their freedom.

Fallen lovers, estranged brothers in arms, discarded loyalties, and betrayed hearts, these were all commonplace for the Daughters of the Dragon, but they took it in without complaint, knowing that with whatever challenge they face, the lands of their mothers would protect them, they would bring them comfort. For a thousand years this mountain stood in relative peace, now, it was all alight with the red light of fire…

* * *

"They will pay for this," Ryuka told Soap, but herself, for the most part. "I will make sure that the Ultranationalists will pay for all of this…" The Task Force 141 was formed to take down the Ultranationalist regime, and Ryuka promised herself, and her ancestors, that she would use every single opportunity she had to ensure that they carried out their primary function, as one of its lieutenants. She will make sure that she will hunt down the Shadow of Zakhaev, whom she was so sure was now the head of the Ultranationalists beneath the surface, and she will make sure that she brought him to light.

"Reddie…" Soap coaxed, knowing full-well that nothing he said would ever change her mind. Those dark eyes of onyx, they held only determination, only the will to carry out what she had decided to do. He knew how hard it must be for her, to personally witness the destruction of a place so sacred to her.

He only held her closer to him, taking her hand in his, reassuring her, that with every step that she would take, he would take it with her. Only time would tell, whether or not the world would still be the same, whether or not she would be able to take her vengeance then, and until then, he would be with her, as he was now. He loved her, he loved her so much that he would be willing to stake his life for her, and he knew that she would do just the same.

"Hey, MacTavish," she murmured softly, her voice slightly shaken, but a smile, was evident upon her beautiful face.

"What is it?" Soap asked, bringing his finger beneath her chin, gently lifting her dark gaze to meet his cold, blue eyes that beheld only her beauty against the flames that burned the forest at the time when it was only darkest before the dawn.

"Thanks for being here with me," Ryuka answered, embracing him. "Besides whatever that's happened tonight… It's turning out to be a rather… interesting family reunion." Soap broke into a smile, and pressed his lips against hers, bringing her into a kiss that he was sure that she would remember, for many, many more family reunions of hers to come.

* * *

_And the world would watch, it would watch for the very moment when one young woman's hatred would turn into duty, and that duty, would be changed into something that no one could ever expect..._

_In that very moment, the Red Dragon would find what she had tried so hard to find, only to receive the greatest gift and the heaviest curse, a double edged sword, that she would carry with the love and the duty that she would her own katana. _


	6. Chapter 6

"_Ryuka..."_

_That voice... she knew that voice more than any single voice she had heard. From the very moment that he had spoken to her in Pyongyang, to the time when he had been arrested by her sister, in the name of the United Nations Security Council. It was the voice that she had both wanted, and yet dreaded to hear. _

_She had hunted him down, and he had done the same to her. The past five years when they had not known one another, the two of them had searched for one another to the verge of desperate obsession, using whatever resources they could find, until the day they had met in Pyongyang. _

"_Why?" she asked him one night in Shanghai. Still, she was not able to free herself from him, this man who had enslaved her in more ways than one. From the very moment they had arrived in that hotel in Shanghai, he had never left her, but she knew, that he had hunted her down for longer. Since that day in the hot deserts of the Middle East, his__ shadow had been cast upon her, and it had never left her, nor ever did hers leave his... _

"_Darling, you may be one of my enemies, but you are also a valuable asset to my plans," Makarov answered simply. "You, Lieutenant Ryuka Algren, are the most elusive jewel that I used five years to locate..." Slowly, he pressed a hand against her hair face, his expression almost tender. _

_Ryuka turned her head away, slapped his hand off her face. "Get away from me, you snake!" she shouted, but was only held closer towards him. Those dark eyes, they beheld him like how she beheld almost every single enemy that she had faced, with that sort of righteous vehemence that could only come from a daughter of an ancient line of warriors. In the end, it only made Makarov want her more. _

_He forced a kiss upon her coral-hued lips, remembering the threats that he had placed upon her. If she wanted the man she loved and the Uncle that she had respected so to live, she would have to give in to him, but still, she would not have submitted to him without a fair fight. "I admire your spirit, Ryuka," he whispered into her ear, his breath, so warm against her skin, slightly cold due to the winter's chill. "Alright, I will tell you why... Five years ago, a young Japanese-UN Black Ops combatant managed to __sneak into a little mud-hut with her older sister... Like you have tried to locate me for the past five years, you were constantly on my mind."_

"_Why me, then?" Ryuka spat, pushing herself away from him, immediately using whatever she could to cover her ravishing body from his heterochromic eyes, knowing that her efforts would be futile... Makarov, he was a man of infinite hunger, and infinite desire, but apart from that, there was nothing else. Every single time she look at him, every single time his fingers had touched her skin, his lips took hers, she could see everything fleeting through her eyes... The deaths of her own brothers, the amount of blood that she had shed, just to take him down... "Why would you torture me so?"_

_This time, he did not advance upon her. "Ryuka, have you not done the same to me as well?" he asked her in return. "I know how it feels like, to see nothing but a shadow, when you seek that person that has been dwelling at the back of your mind, knowing that one day, you would meet right in the center of the battlefield... Do you remember Pyongyang, darling? You were so beautiful then, carefree and spirited, not embittered, as you are now."_

"_If I am embittered, you have caused all this!" she shouted back. From the very moment Shepherd had told her who he was, she knew. She knew that he was the Shadow of Zakhaev, that man who had caused the deaths of thirty thousand Marines, the man that had led the Chinese to defile the lands of her ancestors, and more importantly, that man for whom countless warriors had sacrificed themselves for, mission after mission, under the banner of the 141. She knew who this man was, and she wanted to kill him more than anything. _

"_If you are so displeased with me, then by all means, kill me," Makarov replied, handing her katana back to her. "You are proficient with this weapon, are you not?" He had seen her use it, and was almost a victim of her deadly dance... He knew how powerful she was with this in her hand. _

_Ryuka took the katana in her hand, feeling as though another piece of herself had been returned, and closed her eyes. In her mind, the image of Makarov appeared right before her, tall, and cold, and in her mind's eye, she would kill him before he was able to do anything to her... She would no longer be subject to his manipulations... However, something halted her hand, and it was more than just mercy. _

_No, it was something far darker than that. For five years, she had hunted him down almost to a degree of obsession, and for five years, she had fought to the end of her life and back, to undo the damage that he has done to the World. She would not stoop to his own level, no; she would do far better than that. _

_Without saying another word, she thrust her katana into the carpet of the hotel room, and walked past Makarov, only to have him pull her back towards him by her wrist. "I knew that you couldn't do it," he told her, pushing a stray lock of fiery red hair behind her ear. "You are far too honorable to strike down a hated enemy in cold blood..."_

"_Go to hell," she cursed, knowing that despite everything that she had tried, she was hopeless against him. _

_This time, Makarov chuckled. "Darling, there will come a time when you would understand, that the two of us, our meeting in Dushanbe, and our time here, they are decreed by the hand of Fate." Slowly, he started to kiss light trails from her neck, to her jaw line, nibbling softly where her neck and her shoulder met. _

"_Then Fate is the meanest bitch I'll ever know," she replied, knowing that there was no way out for her. For John, and for Uncle Price, she would have to pay any single price that he would have to ask.

* * *

_

The snowball that hit her right in her face brought her back to reality, from that memory etched so deeply into her thoughts, and when Ryuka opened her eyes again, all she could see was her beautiful, beautiful daughter, running towards her in her little footsteps, apologizing profusely.

"Oka-chan, I'm sorry!" Miryu said, blinking her large eyes at her mother, not knowing that they were heterochromic, just like her father's. Miryu, she was a perfect Slavic beauty, apart from the common rarities that she had inherited from either of her parents, red hair, and the mismatched color of her eyes. And yet, her eyes, although large, were slightly slanted, bringing an Asian charm about her.

Ryuka smiled, and petted Miryu's head. "It's alright Miryu-chan," she replied, hugging the child as tightly as she could. Her daughter, she looked so much like her father, not John MacTavish but Vladimir Makarov and she did not know it. She could not know it, until the time was right... Every time she looked at Miryu, she was instantly reminded of that man, whom she was supposed to hate and destroy, but could not, at the very end.

And even until that day, she could never comprehend why. Was her heart so weak, that it went all aflutter when he told her that she loved her, or was he right, that it was Fate that brought them together? So much so that from a single moment in time, their movements had shadowed one another?

Whether or not it was a cruel irony of life, or it was destiny at work, Ryuka knew that what had passed, already passed and it would do her no good to forever dwell upon those things. Yes, Fate was the meanest bitch the world would ever know, but Fate, however mean, was bountiful to the daughters that served the world well. From the darkest of her enemies Ryuka Algren received the gift of the greatest light, her daughter, her one and only child that had brought her from the deepest despairs of the last war that almost broke her in its final days...

And for that, Ryuka understood why she had to allow Makarov to live, even though he would forever be imprisoned, save for three more days of his own choosing. As the sun threatened to melt the effects of last night's heavy snowfall, she finally knew why she could never bring herself to kill him at all...

"Now, run along, child, don't waste this lovely day," she told her daughter, slowly chasing after her as the little ball of fire and of ice flitted amongst the trees that had guarded mother and daughter for many, many generations.

Long have they guarded those who would take their own fate into their own hands, and long have they protected those who would love and hate those they would by the sheer will of their own hearts... For when a Daughter of the Dragon comes through their boughs, she is safe, safe from the worries of the world, from the burden she herself had taken upon her shoulders, for the benefit of all.

And it was there, on that plain in the mountains where she would find peace, peace to still her own warrior's heart, amongst those that she had loved, far from those who would bring her harm. For on that sacred plain in the mountains, she was home.

* * *

HAN: Well, that's that! How do you find it? Not bad for a little ficcie, yes, no?


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